In Her Eyes
by Leebot
Summary: In front of the spirit portal, Korra and Asami look to the future, and reflect on where they find it.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** A short fic in two chapters, though I do certainly hope to write more for this couple in the future. I hope you all enjoy, and I appreciate any and all reviews.

Spoiler warning for the finale, if you haven't seen it yet. And if you haven't, go see it.

* * *

A year ago, the question was: "Why?" In particular, some variation on: "Why was I poisoned?", "Why didn't I recover fully?", "Why did I survive?", or "Why me?"

I never actually spoke those words aloud, of course. I knew full well how all of my friends and allies would have replied. Mako would have shifted the blame to Zaheer and the Red Lotus, but those simple facts of the matter didn't satisfy me. Bolin would probably have just admitted he didn't know and tried to shift the subject. Tenzin would have given me a better answer, probably telling me that the universe had a plan for me; I simply didn't know it yet.

Asami… Well, I couldn't quite guess at her answer. And while I was never able to speak any of those questions out loud, it turned out to be just a bit easier to write them down. And so I ended up admitting my questions to her in one of my letters. Around a month later, I received a reply. I ended up reading over this section of her letter so many times that I can recite it by rote now:

_As for your questions, the answers all seem simple on the face of them: Zaheer was trying to kill you because he wanted a world without the Avatar. The Avatar state wasn't able to repair the damage already done to your body, but it, along with your own strength, is the reason you did indeed survive. And it happened to you because you're the Avatar. But you know all that, and the questions still bother you. Something else is the problem here._

_My father once told me that the Fire Sages believe in a concept known as "mu." It means "nothing" or "emptiness," but when used as a reply to a question, it has a special meaning: "The question is wrong." Imagine I asked you, "Have you stopped riding badgermoles around Republic City?" Of course, you've never ridden badgermoles in your life (to the best of my knowledge). But if you were to answer "yes" or "no," you would be validating my question - say "yes" and you've ridden them in the past but have stopped, or say "no" and you're still riding them. The proper reply is "mu"; you've never ridden one. The question is wrong._

_And so I wonder if this is the problem here. You aren't satisfied with the simple answers to these questions because you know that the questions themselves are wrong. I don't think these questions are completely wrong, mind you. They mean something to you, so they're likely close to the questions you should be asking. So for now, perhaps you should try to figure out what question you should be asking._

Asami was certainly onto something. Asking those questions over and over wasn't getting me anywhere. If I'd remained where I was, I never would have found any answers. The answers to all my questions why didn't come to me until I found myself trying to understand Kuvira. Once I saw it, it all made sense; I'd gone through all of that so that I could empathize with her, to understand her.

Which meant Asami was right. At the time I was asking those questions, there was no way I could have answered them. I hadn't seen the reasons why yet. As Tenzin would have said, the universe hadn't yet made its plans clear. Or, looking at it another way, I shouldn't have been asking why, I should have been asking something else. I should have been asking what I could learn from it all.

The Korra from a year ago would certainly be asking why right now, as I enter the new spirit portal with Asami. Why, when I've decided that now is the time to look to the future, do I find myself looking into her eyes? And why do I find her looking back into mine? But no, those aren't the questions I should be asking. I smile at Asami, holding her hand in mine as we stand before the portal. What do I learn from this?

A warmth slowly fills my heart as the answer comes to me. A woman who sometimes seemed to know me better than I know myself. My closest friend. The only one I could trust when I was at my lowest. The one I wanted to spend time with when things settled down.

From my subconscious actions as we approached the portal, my body had made it clear that it already knew the answer. My mind had only now caught up.

It was simple. I saw my future in her eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

We all enter life _in medias res_ \- in the middle of the story.

Many books start in the middle of the action to draw in the reader, to keep them hooked. The past is then filled in later, either through flashbacks, discussions, or simply rewinding time and starting over from the beginning. It's quite a popular technique, and I have to wonder if part of the reason why is because this is how we all experience life.

When we're born, the world has already been going on for longer than we've been alive. Our personal story starts then, but there are so many other pieces we need to fill in to get the complete backstory. For me, you could start telling my story with the death of my mother, when I was six years old, during a burglary by the Agni Kai Triad. But then you'd be leaving out the history of Republic City that led to the rise of gangs such as them, the particulars of this gang, and why they chose to target my parents' home in particular. To be honest, I still don't fully know the answer to that last part, so any story I tell about myself is by necessity going to be incomplete.

Nevertheless, that was the point where I always considered my own story to start. That incident spurred my father to hire the best self-defense instructors in Republic City to train me. He raised me to be confident, self-assured, skilled, and smart, so that what happened to my mother would never happen to me. I truly love him for that, even if he did end up going too far in retaliation against Benders. Despite his own mistakes, it's due to the way he raised me that I was able to stand up to him and take him down.

But while my story has always firmly been my own, it's also always been painfully obvious to me that the rest of the world is filled with people in the middle of their own stories. I had to catch up on so much of it all in my youth, and again with every new person I met. Perhaps most significant of all was when it came to the stories of Avatar Korra and the brothers Mako and Bolin.

Of the three, I met Mako first. As I saw the story, he came out of nowhere, and I was barely able to avoid running him over with my Satomobile. He was a handsome boy of my own age, a player of my favorite sport who needed a sponsor to continue to play it, and the chemistry between us was instantaneous. It was as if I'd won a cosmic lottery and the spirits had given me just what I wanted. Until I learned the rest of the story.

For Mako, the story was about the sudden appearance of two women in his life vying for his attentions - myself and Korra - and the slow realization that while he had feelings for both of us, he prefered Korra, but he'd gotten into a relationship with me first. For Korra, it was about her feelings for Mako, with me as the sudden complication, the obstacle. And for Bolin, it was about his unrequited feelings for Korra, and the slowly-dawning realization that she preferred Mako to him.

There have been many times in my life when I knew it was best to take control, to make the story my own. This was not one of those times. Mako and Korra were at the center of this story, and they had to be the ones to take control, for better or worse. I can't say I was exactly happy with how they ended up resolving things, but… I couldn't find it in myself to remain angry with either of them.

As frustrated as I was with Mako, I still cared for him. And it wasn't as if I could blame Korra for being attracted to Mako. Besides, I quite liked her company. And so I remained friends with them. And when Mako and Korra eventually decided they didn't work as a couple, it gave Korra and myself one more thing to bond over.

And so I slowly began to realize what my story was truly about. Throughout it all, there was only one person I found myself truly comfortable with. I trusted Mako and Bolin, certainly, but things were always different between myself and Korra. Our relationship developed so gradually that I don't know if I could describe it properly if I tried.

I guess the best way to put it is this: As we prepared for our vacation in the spirit world, Korra told me that despite the current ruins of Republic City, she felt hopeful for the future of it. "I do too," I said as we headed toward the spirit portal. "In fact, I think it's the perfect time to start looking toward the future."

It was as these words left my mouth that my hand reached out to take Korra's. I may not have had the words for it at the time, but I knew. As we reached the portal, I turned to face her, and she to me. This was my future.

Looking into Korra's eyes, I was certain. This was where my story would truly begin.


End file.
